my process of transition over the last ~year and the reorganization project I've done over the last ~month have given me a lot of cause to think about the past, and about specific memories.
this is very long. I was inspired looking at this stuff earlier today, and I wanted to write a whole Post about it.
it's not the point of the post, but I credit weed usage for a lot of the thinking about the past I've been doing - it places me into a mode of reminiscing and of honest self-evaluation which I've found very helpful for the gender discovery. and it's very distinct from how a lot of my remembering has gone in the past - that's usually been "remembering every embarrassing or bad thing I ever did late at night and doing a full-body wince about it". sometimes I'd have a reason to touch a physical or digital item from the past and remember that way, but that was less common. I do also wonder if it's had other effects on memory, but as I said, not the point of this.
my memory has felt a lot worse recently. I remember bits and pieces of everything. it isn't just an age thing, though I think memories from longer ago ARE worse. I remember only bits and pieces of college, only moments of my last job, only shreds what I did in the margins of work from 2015-2019, only fragments of the person depicted in the box of School Shit I just repacked, etc. it feels bad! it feels like things are slipping away from me and that ultimately they're all going to be gone. not all of it is important, but it's not like I get to choose what goes and what doesn't.
except, I CAN actually, I've found. this is the point of the post.
I have these little corkboards (in the pictures, I'm getting to those, hold on) on little stands. this is an evolution of having them pasted to the wall (don't do this), which is an evolution of pinning stuff directly to the wall (don't do this either). these are flexible, replaceable, and make an instant Display I can change or move around (a thing I have done a lot recently!)
I realized I can tell you what all of these items on the boards are. where they came from, why I have them. without really meaning to, I stored memories in them that I can recall very clearly. more clearly/verbosely in person probably, I'd talk your ear off about these. let me write your eyes (?) off (??) instead.
image #2. board only.
the phone case in the upper left is from when I did Extra Life in 2016. I was on Giant Bomb's team, of course. I played Tales of Vesperia to completion in just over 25 hours. I had 10x XP set from a new game plus to make that viable, and honestly I could have gone faster even without speedrunning, I just digressed a LOT earlier on.
the stickers on the bottom come from a kickstarter which also got me a Question Hound plush and a lil cardboard house. there's also a magnet on my fridge, a couple stickers I lost with old laptops, and I think a few more stickers in my "I guess I should give these things to guests if they want" box.
the opus magnum patch was my reward for finishing the Opus Magnum campaign to completion (and possibly doing every puzzle including bonuses? that detail escapes me). I wasn't aware this was a reward going into the game. I just finished the campaign, got linked to a website, put some info in, and got a patch in the mail. felt really proud about it when I'd gotten it.
the EXAPUNKS patch WAS something I expected. EXAPUNKS was a later game, one I was fully anticipating on release and (as I recall) pre-ordered with some expected bonuses. I had a nice package with some stuff I was told to open midway through the game, and some stuff I was told to only open at the end. EXAPUNKS is probably still my favorite zachtronics game, even if Eliza and Last Call BBS are both very strong entries for different reasons. I still gotta go do one bonus puzzle for EXAPUNKS at some point.
image #4
the two pieces on the left are both the work of Elizabeth Simins. the "The Prisoner" ass shot was a patreon tier reward - I got to pick a butt for her to draw, and being obsessed with Dead Cells at the time, I picked The Prisoner for it.
the sketchbook page I believe was a donation reward, tied to Inktober (as labelled), and depicts Hot Pants, from Steel Ball Run. at the time I had not read Steel Ball Run, and Hot Pants was just the coolest-seeming character left from the options in the poll or list or whatever. I have since read Steel Ball Run, and it's good (with some issues), and Hot Pants is cool, so I stand by this choice.
the piece in the upper right was a gift from a friend in college my senior year. (she (Hope Yu) is now an illustrator, if you'd like to check her other work out). when I say I have always loved snow leopards, I am not exaggerating. this was something I got senior year, and if my jogged memory isn't failing me it was near the end of that, too. something fully unexpected that I treasured on receipt and still treasure now.
the bottom right is one of the patreon reward postcards from riki nyanko (and a note tucked behind it thanking for the support). this is a bit too recent to really demonstrate the exercise, but riki's streams are great and I've enjoyed all the ones I've watched. I look forward to reflecting on this more in another ten years.
next to this board is a shot glass for one of the parties my dorm held every year in college. those memories weren't exactly clear even at the time for reasons, and opening that is too big a topic. but I'm glad to have a few mementos to draw on there.
the fish is destiny 2 lightfall I'm not talking about that that's too recent.
the oatmeal rabbit (just out of frame in #4, best shown in #2) came with an easter care package from my parents one year. again too big a topic to draw into, let's just summarize that as "you're never too old to appreciate a box of easter sweets".
image #3 (listen I took these pictures hours ago and only got around to writing now, I can't fix order)
I didn't really discover programming until college. I knew things about putting computers together. I knew a lot about various sciences. I dabbled in html but never got as far as actually putting a website up. so, when I went to school, I thought I was going to be an engineer. and in the course of doing that at [redacted*], I took a class on manufacturing and machine shop usage. for that class, you made a tool tray, a screwdriver, and a hammer.
all of this is from raw materials, to spec. (I have the grade sheet for the hammer and the full instructions for the screwdriver. I do not remember if I still have the instruction sheet for the hammer.)
let's walk through construction.
the screwdriver shaft and handle were both lathe turned, the handle additionally having a divot right at the end before it goes back to cylindrical. the tip of the shaft/blade is milled at an angle (the blade HELD at an angle, specifically - we had one CNC mill which might have been able to move to do it, but the other machines couldn't, and in general you weren't allowed to cut corners with the CNC machine). the blade is heat treated**. had to mill a hole through the handle and then pressure fit a pin into the handle to hold it.
the acrylic creases were done with a mill and a special holder that was marked to let you rotate in sixths. however, because the holder was off slightly, the divots in mine are off. the shop proctor told me, after it was too late to correct the mistake, that you could adjust for this by alternating the part, instead of turning it clockwise each time or counterclockwise each time. the divots and end were taped to keep the acrylic clear, and the rest sandblasted for a fogged look.
the best part of the hammer was turning the handle - wood lathes are fun and slightly less terrifying than metal lathes (I don't know if there's any logic behind this claim, they just scare me a little less). the wooden handle isn't measured fully to spec, but several points on it are. I knew of someone (or maybe talked to someone who knew someone who knew someone who etc) who lathed their handle to spec everywhere it would be measured, and left the rest uncut. the flat sides (rough cuts) would have either been done on a belt sander or bandsaw - our mills weren't for wood use, so those would have been the only options.
afterwards you sanded (so hopefully you didn't lathe/saw EXACTLY to spec). the people who were real intense about this would go down gradations of sandpaper. probably some toothpaste on a rag at the end.
the faces and head were lathed to spec. the (nylon) soft face is just a simple cylinder. the (steel) hard face has two diameters (one is concealed by the pressure fit), and a radius at the end. the (steel) hammer head had has THREE different radii. the nylon face additionally gets a hole milled for a threaded bolt, the hard face additionally gets heat treated to, well, be hardened steel.
the metal head had flat sides milled onto it, and also had a slot milled in. additionally, you had to mill a hole for the soft face screw to go into, and then tap that hole to fit the screw. I learned much later from stuff like my mechanics that you can tap with a lathe or mill directly. we did it manually, which is a pretty fun ritualistic process - turn, quarter turn back out, turn, quarter turn back out, etc etc. the head is held to the hammer with a wedge.
a lot of people were very precious about their tools, even going so far as to wrap them in cloth when we handed them in for grading. I found this preposterous - a tool's a tool. taking pride in it is fine, but I never saw the value in trying to preserve these perfectly. these have been among my general Tools Pile off and on for ages. I still mostly feel this way, but at this point I have enough distance from them that I also see the value in displaying them, as imperfect and scratched tools I made myself. they have worked great whenever I've used them, though 99% of screws I have to deal with are philips and so the flathead screwdriver has limited value.
if you ask about the controller or remote I will frown at you. I do have things to say about the carved owl but I feel I've written enough already.
god this was a long post. I've proved the point I was musing on earlier and musing on while writing this - these memories aren't gone. they're tied in these objects. they're not necessarily going to last forever in this form either, but they'll last long enough. and if you know me personally and also are close enough to visit, we should do that at some point. I've got some great conversation piece setups, and a space I'm really getting proud of.
it's very nice having an idea of who you are and what's important to you.
* there's enough info in here to place where I went to school, I've not exactly kept it secret, and several of my followers know. But it is also not the point of the post, and I don't want to get into it.
** heat treating is heating in a certain way for extra hardness. there are marks on the screwdriver blade and hard face of the hammer from hardness testing for a grade. but the thing I actually wanted to talk about in this footnote is that heat treating in practice, for me at least, was "find someone who understood how to do it, and go with them and a group and everyone will get their parts heat treated in one go by the guy who knows how to do it". mostly it's a lot of waiting by an oven.

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